November 23, 2013

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him and asked him a question, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

Scripture passage from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright 1989, 1993, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

About Mary Ellen Green, O.P.

Mary Ellen is a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa, Wisconsin, USA. She is currently serving on the staff of Marywood Franciscan Spirituality Center in Woodruff, WI. Her ministry experience includes congregation leadership; secondary education (teaching and administration); formation and vocation ministry; and preaching retreats through Parable Conference for Dominican Life and Mission. In 2005-06 she spent fifteen months living at the Monastery of Sainte-Marie de Prouilhe, the cradle of the Dominican Order in southern France.